A life ruined by SAF

last SG · 2008-03-16T23:51:50+00:00

no compensation? does saf provide those insurance for those who get into accident during bmt or even service? Everywhere is prone to accident...

cookiecookie SG

Dude, if that was true, why would we invest so much in technology that REDUCES our manpower needs? That fact is that the SAF has to adapt to the number of fighting soldiers that we have, not the other way around.

You're not accurate to say this. Technology can only reduce manpower needs up to a certain degree. If not, then we can simply crank up our technology with our mighty reserves to the point that we have as large an army as China and US?! Technology can REDUCE the liability of a small army pool, but it does not negate the liability.

It is a fact that the SAF has to fulfil a certain no. of quota for its rank and file, because those positions need to be filled, failing which the whole force will be crippled. Going by your logic, why don't we abolish the whole NSF thing and even the service chiefs and replace the whole force with droids and machines and computer robots?

When there's a lack of manpower to fulfil those needs, criteria have to be bent in accordance to the severity of the urgency to fulfil the needs for an operational force.

MS SG

... Yes I have done NS before. I have also got my fair share of extras, punishments and so on. I still think that the emotional, knee-jerk reaction that most people have to this unverified story is, at best, misguided, when it is clear that given that it is a conscript force, the SAF cannot cover up any such incidents or it will lose the public trust.

I say again: This story has been publicised and STOMPed, and immediately after that the blogger removes his blog? Why would he do that unless his story was untrue? If his story is true, you can be sure some MP will raise the issue in Parliment and then you will see some heads roll.

I believe many others here also have done NS so knows how does the organisation operates.

As I have said previously, the blogger's story requires further accessment. However when you say that the blogger removes the story because it's untrue. Have you ever considered that the blogger could be threatened? And I hope you do know that when you are up against the SAF, even how right and true you are, you will still fear being maligned.

This can be described in a more concise manner. I have been through the same ordeal. A notorious Warrant officer denied having not informed me about a new policy told my Hd GS that he already informed me in order to save his own skin. I was that time only a trainee up against a warrant officer before a LTC, no matter how true my story was, there will still be the element of fear of being maligned and story twisted. Then being punished in the light of a twisted story against your truth. Eventually, I resorted to attempt to lie to accomodate the warrant officer. Thank God, the Hd GS didn't get me to see him a second time and I was posted out shortly and the case was concluded without a closure. Of course without me having to lie.

Perhaps, you can start to think from a multi-perspective.

SAF is a big organisation. All sorts of people exist. Management Words twisting always seem so justified in the SAF. I took the leap and left the force early refusing to take up the Premium plan was to avoid anymore consequences of the word twisting games the force can play. During my recent ICT, the state of the force really left me utterly relieved that I made the right choice by leaving early. Many of my ex colleagues were given the golden handshake and stuck jobless or have to contend for a much lower paid job. SAF will never take care of you. You have to take care of yourself. Always skip the chain of command, broadcast your predicament if you need to. Because if you do this, people can penalise you yet you can justify it. But when you get killed or hurt, no one will pity you.

This is the SAF.

MS SG

To especially a big organisation, it is essential to keep up with times and upgrade our equipments. Shed off free loaders and maintain the upkeep of people who contributed in the past regardless are they still able bodied now.

The SAF is a government body and therefore cannot use the benchmark of a private profit oriented organisation to measure the maintenance of labour. By removing people who served relentlessly for the past couple of decades in the name of keeping up with times is utterly despicable.

This is not the way to manage expired talents. If this is the way how SAF runs, how on earth are they going to attract new real talents to come forth and serve?

The fact is that the SAF didn't adapt to their existing numbers rather than the other way round. Many of my ex colleagues were not given an extension to their contract. And if not for the Warrant who wrote in the press about his disappointed premature retirement, the SAF will never bother to find out whether those who served the force for so many years were able to find an equally paid job.

Broadcast your predicament, skip the chain of commands if need be. Because these are the fastest way to get things done. And of course, thou shalt not lie about your problems to gain leverage. Otherwise, you shall be liable and deserve to be punished.

Saf4life SG

when i get to heaven

St Peter's gonna say

how did you earn your living

how did you ean your pay

i will reply with A WHOLE LOTTA ANGER

EARNED MY PAY AS AN AIRBORNE RANGER!

AIRBORNE RANGERS LEAD THE WAY!

MS SG

usually, the military just needs to fulfil its quota. sometimes, anything also will do. they juz want the numbers.

To the top managment, the people are just statistical. Because that is the best way for management to see the actual performance of the organisation. I did management in a private organisation before and sometimes really hate the idea of knowing some of my friends is amongst the numbers.

In the SAF, I have met some really good officers who stood up for men. BG Ong Boon Hwee, LTA Jeremiah Ong Kian Ann, CPT Tan Teck Kim are real good examples. These Armour officers are like everyone of us, limited as a man. But when they knew something went wrong, they stood up and did their best to right the wrongs. Yet at the same time, they are also subjected to the harshness of the SAF culture or commonly known as words twisting. One of my fellow spec asked the commander,"Sir, you all always tell us to take care of your men, then who takes care of us?" Indeed, if the officer take care of his men, but who takes care of him?

edwin3060 SG

we can haf machines and all. but the bottomline is we still need people to man those machines and go occupy ground. we havent reach the stage of having robots right? wad we have now are juz machines which are manned by man, be it fax machine to sophisticated multi-role weapons...we still need ppl to man them. and we need adequate number of people to do that. and thats when filling the ranks comes in. for example, infantry will be infantry...they are made of ppl doing work only ppl can do that machines can't. what technology can do for us...is juz to allow us to fight more ppl with the numbers we have. not reduce the number of ppl needed to fight.

Exactly my point-- the SAF needs the machines because we don't have enough people. Yet, machines cannot always do as good a job as people. Ergo, the SAF needs more people. Given such a situation, why would the SAF mistreat someone?

edwin3060 SG

My sergeant once told the platoon that once, we lacked so much people in the command school that they started pushing all those who 'just failed the criteria' into command school. Fail IPPT, slightly obese, fail SOC, etc, all just push into command school.

In the end the soldiers suffered as they can't keep up with the training.

You said it yourself, they just failed the criteria. I take that to mean that they barely failed (i.e maybe by a few seconds). In that case, the training would logically be made tougher to ensure that they would meet the criteria by the time they passed out of OCS, thus they would suffer more.

edwin3060 SG

Well, you said "serve their BOND before going to private practice". The natural thing for the audience to infer is that you're referring to sign-on doctors. Pls note that regulars are the ones who have 'bond', even those with some crappy LSA, while CONSCRIPTS' time in the NS is not known as bond, but "draft", "conscription", "time" or "NS liability". I was referring to the sign-on docs.

Since now you have clarified that you were referring to NSF docs, sure then you are right that they have all the moral highground to have the serve and fuck off attitude, cos they are just like any other NSF, except that they serve their NSF duty as MOs. And it's not passion. All local medicine students are deferred from NS and have to complete their degree in NUS before they serve NS. This is so they can function as NSF doctors for our military. It is not their choice so it's not a passion. It's govt rule. Also, they have no choice but to do NS. So it's not passion either.

Ok, sorry for the misunderstanding, but my medicine friends, and one Bn MO I talked to, referred to their NS service as bonds (which in effect it was--it was a bond so that they could defer NS and go to medical school) . Bonded service doesn't necessary have to refer to scholarships.

Next, they DON'T have the moral high ground to have the Serve- and Fuck off attitude. Nobody has, and I never said that anyone would be right in having that attitude. I don't see how I could have implied that. What I said was-- despite the fact that they have to serve, they don't just do the bare minimum. Some of them actually take the effort to identify real cases and treat them; while giving the chao-kengers their just desserts. What drives them to do that extra bit? You don't have to call it passion, but it is still something that they should be given credit for, especially given the attitude of some others who have to serve.

edwin3060 SG

When there's a lack of manpower to fulfil those needs, criteria have to be bent in accordance to the severity of the urgency to fulfil the needs for an operational force.

Ok, it seems that both you and del_co read my post as saying that manpower is not necessary. I apologise for the misunderstanding. I shall now detail out what I meant by that post.

1) The SAF is desperately short of manpower

2) The next best alternative is machinery and automation

3) Because we cannot change the fact that Singaporean women don't want to have children, we have to rely on the alternatives

4) Thus, we invest in machinery.

5) This in no way means that we value machines over men. If we could have more soldiers, more boots on the ground, we would definitely want them. In fact, I think the SAF has consistently made it clear that its focus is on the men, even though we spend money on machines (because you can't buy men :P)

Hope that clears my post up.

caleb_chiang SG

Actually, the blogger should had just emailed Mindef and it will be dealt with almost immediately.

Last time after I ORD'ed... I slapped my chief clerk with a compliment letter regarding her threating my friend to rewrite his leave form as seemingly... the forms were lost... Anyway, also regarding some missing allowances that they owes us after we ORD... The very next working day, the heads start rolling in my previous unit.

edwin3060 SG

I believe many others here also have done NS so knows how does the organisation operates.

Perhaps, you can start to think from a multi-perspective.

This is the SAF.

I sympathise with your story. But I hope you realise that it was that particular bad apple, the Warrant Officer, and not the SAF, that threatened you. And that is simply the point I am making-- the SAF cannot, as a whole, have threatened that blogger to close down his blog. There would be all kinds of repercussions if that had actually happened.

At the same time, I recognise your point. If the blogger had mentioned any particular superiors in his post, and that superior went and threatened him to close his blog, he would have done so because he was intimidated. And the blogger would also have thought that the SAF as a whole condoned that superiors behaviour. But it doesn't. It cannot. I know that it is hard to seperate the individual out from the organisation in this case, but we have to. In either case, a more thorough investigation, rather than the 'tyranny of the masses' trial of the SAF on this thread, would shed more light on the issue.

edwin3060 SG

This is not the way to manage expired talents. If this is the way how SAF runs, how on earth are they going to attract new real talents to come forth and serve?

I thoroughly agree with you on the first point-- the SAF is not only a government body, but the military, and soldiers as a whole, need special recognition for the fact that they are willing to die for their country. Unfortunately, given the fact that we are a conscript army, not a professional one, and that we have not been involved in any major conflict, most people do not recognise or are not willing to give recognition to this-- ultimately the SAF budget is approved by the parliment, and by extension the people. If the average man in the street doesn't voice this concern out to their MPs, changes will never occur.

The second point though, is not valid. My point about manpower is only valid for the lower ranks-- any effective military has a very shallow sided rank-population pyramid i.e. there are far, far less warrants than MSG, less MSG than SSG and so on. Thus, it is inevitable that many people will leave the military at each level of the pyramid. This is the same for militaries throughout the world, even professional ones like the US Army. The difference is whether you treat the Army as an iron rice bowl or not. The military is not a jobs program-- if you try to do that, you end up with way too many high ranking warrants and officers than you require and your military becomes inefficient.

edwin3060 SG

Indeed, if the officer take care of his men, but who takes care of him?

Yea, well, thats why officers are paid right? If not we wouldn't even need officers (/tongue in cheek)

cookiecookie SG

Hi. May i know what was your rank when this occurred?

MS SG

Hi, I think you still don't get my point.

Maybe it will look better in point form.

(1) SAF is a big organisation which stresses heavily on regimentation.

(1a) Rank speaks in the SAF.

(1b) The best way to get stagnant things in SAF moving is through a much higher ranking officer, lawyer's letter or the press.

(1c) The SAF culture owes many servicemen their rights and payment. But no serviceman can owe the SAF anything.

(1d) The SAF fears bad publicity. Therefore any articles which threatens the brand name of SAF will be put down in the quickest possible time.

(2) This is all thanks to the culture of SAF. Therefore it is very easy to force someone down to oblivion with SAF.

(3) SAF Culture Vs EU Corporate Culture

As the culture of SAF, you need many good officers to make things go well. But all you need is 1 bad appple to drag the whole unit down. As I stated in (1a), it will be worse off if the bad apple is of much higher rank. Imagine the effects it can cause.

However, in the private sector especially in a non Asian environment whereby regimentation is not as strongly emphasised, things are more democratic and the chances of having one having absolute power over everything is very much lower compared to SAF. Work becomes easier. Good ideas are more visible. And everyone watches their back as in do not go around using ranks to stamp anyone. Rather use strong reasoning to back their arguments.

(4) It is simply not sensible to think that SAF is an organisation which practice righteous and integrity carrying ways. If you are not standing in the way to affect anyone's ricebowl in the SAF, you are lucky. But if you are, even though you are right, you will have to be prepared to meet strong obstructions. This is all thanks to the SAF culture which many people practice it unconsciously.

(5) Pardon my bluntness, indeed, I can tell that you have yet to experience real dirty politics before. I have been through 6 years in the SAF, from units to units. My colleagues who spend over 20 years in the SAF. Some warrants and officers who contributed their entire youth in the SAF. And it was very saddening to see the 50 year old warrant removed from office during his most vulnerable period. Jettisoned from the force before his compulsory retirement when he is not prepared for his retirement plans. How clean can the organisation be? And he is not the only senior who was given such treatment.

During my recent ICT, one of the SSG expressed his fears of losing his ricebowl.

As an organisation, if you are clean and upright, will you dump those who contributed vastly in the past but now 'old and useless' staffs? Then in the first place why should I even bother to contribute and stay if I know my ending will be as tragic.

(5a) Take a good look on the companies and see who are the ones who have low staff turnover rate.

(5b) Who does not need to use a contract to bond anyone eg. management trainee.

(5c) Who does not require to use moneytary bait to entice the unaware?

(5d) And who truely honours the clause stated in the papers and will not use 'subjected to change' to deprive the justice that the people who signed for.

And sadly among all those I have stated, SAF breeches all.

MS SG

It is not about leaving the SAF or not. But it is about how the person leaves the SAF.

Retired honourably? or jettisoned like a piece of junk & will not bother about his future.

Who in the right frame of mind will want to serve such an organisation? Flippant and moral infidelity towards the contracts dished out.

MS SG

Hi. May i know what was your rank when this occurred?

PTE.

MS SG

Yea, well, thats why officers are paid right? If not we wouldn't even need officers (/tongue in cheek)

Officers are also considered 'employees' in the SAF. Even though they are supposedly the ones to take the first fires, many have also contributed to the SAF's progress. Their welfare must not be neglected even though not able to equate to their subordinates.

shade343 SG

Actually, the blogger should had just emailed Mindef and it will be dealt with almost immediately.

Is emailing MINDEF considered bypassing CoC?

tripwire SG

as the chinese says... big trees will have rotten branches.... i am not in a position to comment on that particular issue since i am not priviliege to the full story from both sides..

however... the important thing for me as a soldier during NS and after ORD... is to treat everyone above, next and under my command as my brother.

in reservist... we never pull rank... rank is but a mere representation of our different job and task... no one keng... everyone put in an effort... if you dont perform... we simply fail your ICT and you can keep coming back for more "holiday"

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